Galvis' homer in the ninth wins it for Phillies

Philadelphia Phillies' Freddy Galvis gets doused with water and shaving cream following a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2013, in Philadelphia. The Phillies won 6-5. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

PHILADELPHIA — A big-league hit had been a long time coming for Freddy Galvis.

He didn’t have one in his final nine at-bats before he was optioned to Triple-A Lehigh Valley in late June, and in his first two starts after returning as a September call-up, he had gone 0-for-7.

Saturday night, he finally broke the ice — with a sledgehammer.

After Jonathan Papelbon had blown a two-run lead in the ninth by giving up a two-run, two-out, two-strike homer to Andrelton Simmons, Galvis stepped in against Freddy Garcia in the bottom of the ninth and launched a walk-off homer deep into the right-field seats to give the Phillies a 6-5 win over the Braves at Citizens Bank Park.

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“Today,” Galvis said, traces of the shaving-cream pie he received still on the back of his head, “was a good day. First of all, it was a good win for the team, and thank god it was good for me.”

Even before that thrilling finish became necessary, Galvis had been the story.

It had been a long, barren slog at the plate in the majors for Galvis. He was hitting .298 May 19 while serving as a super-utility player during the first six weeks of the season. However, when Chase Utley landed on the disabled list with a strained oblique and Galvis became the regular at second base, his swing got longer and his average started to drop. He entered Saturday batting .197 for the Phillies, with just 14 hits in his last 100 at-bats when he was placed in the lineup at shortstop Saturday.

That’s when Galvis was sent to Lehigh Valley to figure things out.

“He went down and played every day to find himself,” hitting coach Steve Henderson said. “And when Freddy’s playing every day, he’s good. He worked on staying back, he got a lot of at-bats. … He’s doing really well.”

The tricky thing when it comes to Galvis is that he does, in fact, have a lot of extra-base pop in his bat. But that also becomes a bugaboo for him.

“That’s what gets him in trouble sometimes,” Henderson said. “Instead of staying back and using his hands, he has a tendency to try and go get the ball. That ball he hit, he stayed back.”

In his first plate appearance, Galvis legged out an infield single against Atlanta starter Alex Wood. However, after a fly out in his second at-bat, Henderson gave him a reminder about staying back.

In the fifth inning it was Galvis’ RBI single to center that gave the Phillies a 4-2 lead. He added another single in the seventh to tie his career high with three hits in a game.

“When I hit the pop up to the right fielder (in his second at-bat),” Galvis said, “Henderson told me to stay back and use my hands, and that’s what I did when I got the hit up the middle.”

The Braves got within a run against Kyle Kendrick (six innings, three runs, career-high eight strikeouts) in the sixth on an RBI double by Chris Johnson, but in the bottom of the eighth, Kevin Frandsen followed Cesar Hernandez’s double (his third hit of the night) with an RBI single to give the Phils an insurance run that would come in handy.

It turned out Galvis would get a chance to set a new career high in hits when Simmons fouled off four pitches against Papelbon before lining a ball that just cleared the left-field fence.

After taking a first-pitch ball from Garcia, Galvis sat on a high changeup and powdered it into the seats for his second walk-off homer of the season.

Yes, Galvis hit the game-winner in the air, and hit it a long way. But Henderson approved of the swing, since that hanger begged to be hit far and deep. “All good hitters in the big leagues hit mistakes,” Henderson said.